Random thoughts and blurbs from the founder for Shugo – Rick Hymanson. Who's Boda? It's a word my 7 year old made up when he was 2.

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Software always has bugs

It may sound pretty ironic coming from a software company but it’s true: All software has bugs.

From the original release up to the latest revision, it’s inherent that software will have some sort of defect. Sometimes adding a new feature will inadvertently cause a bug in existing code — unknowingly to the developer.

Don’t let any company fool you — their software has bugs. Whether they call them bugs, defects, issues or some other made up term (and boy I’ve heard some funny names for them), all software contains them.

Recently a client emailed me sharing their “flawless” experience with our software. The client alluded to how all software typically has problems but they’ve experienced zero with ours. While I do appreciate the feedback, I did share that we do have bugs. Just the other week I noticed a small defect – one that probably none of our clients have experienced. Today with another client, we found a minor defect with our Outlook plug-in which only affected clients on Exchange when forwarding an email being sent a group address. What a crazy scenario: Exchange when forwarding an email sent to a group address – but nonetheless a bug.

We don’t hide it — bugs are always in software. I’ve been developing software for years and I’ve seen my fair share of small & large bugs throughout a number of different software platforms. On the large scale I’ve seen defects which caused a data breach of over a few hundred thousand user accounts. The key obviously is to test diligently (developer unit testing followed by thorough quality assurance testing) and accept that sometimes bugs are going to slip through. You must then be able (and prepared) to react and respond quickly when bugs are found.

A funny story I love to share is a developer interview Rob and I conducted years ago. We were trying to figure out what this developer learned the most from his last project, something that has improved him as he approaches his next project. His answer:

“Next time I’d place some bugs in my code. This project I coded too perfectly, so there were no bugs.”